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If your client merely seeks some info to make buying decisions, then I think
a proposal would be out of place. An approach note should suffice. You could
indicate the specific qualifications your company / product has over
competitors.
An estimate of the work required, a rough cost estimate and the proposed
solution could be included in the approach note.
The note should be more oriented towards providing recommendations to the
customer without blatantly selling him anything, though, if well written,
the approach note would induce your client to issue an RFP, and you could
then respond with a detailed proposal.
A technical proposal simply talks about the
a) Proposed solution - its architechture, the tools you intend to use, the
roles you intend to play
b) Proposed product methodology - how you intend to execute the project. You
might want to include organization structure and / or management structure,
reporting details etc.
c) Very often, a financial proposal is attached along with the technical
proposal as another section. This would talk
about your pricing, payment terms etc
d) Work schedule - your start and end dates, a high-level project plan, if
applicable
e) If the client is a new one, you might also want to include a snapshot of
your company, your expertise in executing similar projects, client
references etc.
Hope this helps.
Have a nice day
Regards,
-----------------------
Badri Narayanan
Satyam Computer Services Limited,
Ph: 8206120
Extn: 5796
Forget about style; worry about results.
-Bobby Orr
-----Original Message-----
From: Meena S [mailto:meena -at- thinkbn -dot- com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 2:44 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: Writing Proposals
Michael, your pointers on creating a proposal were really great. My
colleague is now clear as to what should exactly go inside (and that goes
double for me!!) Thanx a lot..
The RFP is usually initiated by the client, am I right? If we assume that
the client has not given a formal RFP and has just indicated (verbally or
thru' a memo) that he would like a brief proposal for buying decisions, then
how do we go about it? In the same way that you indicated?
Should the proposal contain a High-Level overview of the product? What it
will do and wont do? Will it include deliverables and delivery date? (at
least, time needed to complete proposed project?) How about the pricing of
the product? WIll that need to be addressed in a Technical Proposal? Again
the key here is a "Technical Proposal" as opposed to just a proposal? Is
there a difference, anyway?
Please treat this mail as coming from someone who is a novice at writing
Technical Proposals and respond from scratch ;-)
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